a gentle hand.
If they were to go on, they must cross the wide, pitted Paris-Cherbourg
road. And into this angled a smaller one. This led to Jacquard’s, and
continued seaward to the hamlet of l’Audouville.
The road stretching north and south was completely deserted just then
except for a litter of wrecked Nazi trucks pushed to the sides.
La Fumée put on a jiggling burst of speed to cross the main road. The
smaller road also seemed empty.
“You see,” Victor said. “Here we are. Jacquard’s place is just ahead.”
André’s sharper eyes studied the high stone walls and the slate roofs
above. “It has been bombed or shelled already,” he said.
Victor hunched forward, shocked into silence.
The farm’s roadside gates sagged open on broken hinges, and fowl
wandered in and out.
The sound of a car racing up the main road to Cherbourg caught André’s
ear. As he turned, he saw the car hesitate at the fork of their road,
and then swing into it at gathering speed.
He thrust his hand under Victor’s arm, grabbed the reins, and yanked
the Percheron into the shallow ditch at the side.
The car swept past so fast, André caught only a glimpse of the Nazi
Swastika on the side.
Nearing the broken gate, the Nazi driver slowed uncertainly. But
instantly he swung into a teetering turn, and shot into the barnyard in
the midst of an uproar of cackling hens and geese.
There was a muffled crash.
André and Victor slid quickly from La Fumée’s back with thumping hearts.
“They are trapped,” André whispered, “and do not know how to get out.
We must bring some soldiers before they come out.”
Victor was loosening his shotgun with trembling hands. But his
experience with farmyards now served him well.
“Without a doubt, those Nazi officers have run spank into the
manure pile,” he stated with satisfaction. “They will find some
troublesomeness getting loose.” He took a step forward. “You must run
quickly for help.”
André thought, “The first of the soldiers from the landing barges must
surely be coming across the causeways by now. Captain Dobie said they
would.”
Skittering along past the gate into the grassy edge of the road, he
began to run toward l’Audouville as fast as his legs would carry him.
Racing against time, André could not look back. Before he reached the
turn his heart leaped.
A soldier, bulky with equipment, was coming toward him. He was moving
cautiously along the roadside, rifle poised. And fanning out behind him
was a spaced line of Americans.
André dashed toward them.
Unsmiling and with leveled gun, the first soldier yelled, “Halt!” He
then said rapidly in French, “Who are you? And _where’re_ you going?”
André pointed back to the Jacquard farm. “Nazi officers back there.
Come get them quick--please.”
Beckoning, he turned to run.
“Just a minute there,” the soldier shouted. “Come back here, _petit
garçon_. What’s this you’re talking about?”
André was terrified by the wasted minutes.
He shouted, “_Come!_ A car full of Nazi officers just drove into a
farmyard back there. _Hurry!_ You can take them, but _hurry_.”
The scattered scouting party began to move ahead warily.
“It’s a chance the kid is okay,” the sergeant called back. “We’ll have
to take a look. Keep your eyes open--and keep separated.”
The sergeant quickened his pace, but cautioned, “Take it easy, kid. Let
us get ’em.”
Before they reached the Jacquard gate, sheltered by bushes, André fell
to his knees and crept toward it.
He had not quite reached it when two quick shotgun blasts rang out.
“That’s Victor’s gun,” he said. “The Nazis must have started to leave.”
Shot rattled on metal, and the tail of the Nazi car smashed through the
gates. But, halfway through, the car teetered sharply into the stone
post. Rocking, it toppled over and skidded to a stop.
A voice shouted toward the car, “Hold it. Get out and keep your hands
up!” A Tommy gun chattered across the car’s spinning wheels.
Scrambling boots pounded into action. The German officers were jerked
up and out through the door. André was startled to see a colonel’s
insignia on one officer’s shoulders.
When the Nazis were all on their feet, the sergeant’s men surrounded
them. Two soldiers relieved the officers of their side arms.
As the shock of their capture wore off, the Nazis began to protest
curtly, and the sergeant retorted in their own language.
“Okay. You’re staff officers! We’ll get you to the proper authorities
just as soon as we can.”
André had seen plenty of Germans, but few of such high rank.
Suddenly it dawned on him that it was Victor’s shots which had made the
capture possible by wrecking the car. But where was Victor?
André ran around the farm buildings, but neither Victor nor La Fumée
was in sight--anywhere.
Shells had blasted the carpentry shop, and rubbish lay over the
scattered, twisted, and blackened tools.
After a thorough search, André stumbled sadly out to the courtyard and
around the scattered manure pile, toward the group at the gate.
He was greeted by a shout from a jeep which had driven up. “Hi, there.
You--boy!”
An American lieutenant sat at the wheel, with the two Nazi officers
crammed rigidly in the rear seat. An American with a Tommy gun perched
backward on each of the front mudguards, and the German driver, his arm
in a sling, shared the front seat with the lieutenant.
Impatiently, the lieutenant asked André whether he knew where the
nearest U. S. headquarters had been set up.
[Illustration]
André pointed up the road and replied, with some pride, that there was
an 82nd Command Post in his own house. “It’s a little more than a mile
up that way,” he said.
The lieutenant grinned. “Well, hop in and show us the way.”
André stood stubbornly firm. “But Lieutenant,” he protested, “I came
with Victor. He’s an old man. I can’t leave him here.”
“_Get in_,” snapped the lieutenant. “You can find him later. There’s a
war on.”
“As if I didn’t know,” André thought crossly.
But he climbed over the great booted legs of the guard, and hunched in
under the elbow of the German prisoner.
The jeep lurched into gear and roared down the road.
CHAPTER NINE
_Victor Disappears_
As the jeep bumped rapidly along, André explained to the lieutenant,
“I didn’t want to leave there, sir, till I found my friend Victor. He
was the one who really stopped that Nazi car, shooting at the tires, I
think.”
“He did?” the lieutenant exclaimed. “Well, why did he disappear after
we got there?”
One of the guards interrupted. “Old Frenchman? Walrus mustache? With a
shotgun?”
André nodded excitedly. “Did you see him?”
“Saw a man like that run back into the orchard of that farm just as we
came up.”
André said no more; at least Victor could run.
The jeep had been proceeding cautiously around road blocks and
paratroopers. Now it speeded up.
A little while later, André saw the roofs of his own village, and he
cried, “Oh! it’s been hit!”
It was a different village than the one André had left. Many shells
must have struck it. Trees were shattered and old walls tumbled. Two
houses, not far from the Gagnons’, were badly damaged--one lay in
smoking ruins.
People of the neighborhood shuffled to and fro with arms filled with
possessions.
André called to one of them, “The Cotys and Mme. Lescot--are they all
right?”
“Yes. Everyone did what your captain told us to. We ran into the fields
and hid in ditches when those German shells started coming. It was not
for long. We are told the Maquis found the Nazi gun and blew it up.”
At a sign from André, the jeep slowed and, a moment later, he saw that
his father’s house still stood.
In the doorway, Sergeant Weller shouted at sight of the jeep.
“Kid, you had us scared. Where the--where you been?” he demanded tartly
of André. But he did not wait for an answer.
He gave the jeep and its load a hasty glance, and cried, “_You_
bringin’ in prisoners, too!” Then, noticing their rank, he added to the
lieutenant, in his sharp, official bark, “Bring that German ‘brass’
right in here, sir. Our company colonel’s inside. He’ll sure want to
question ’em.”
Inside the house André found a new, older American officer busy with
maps beside Captain Dobie.
They received the prisoners coolly.
After questioning the Nazi officers a few moments, Captain Dobie
hobbled out to the hallway and closed the door after him. His broken
leg wore fresh splints and a new dressing.
[Illustration]
The captain looked at André with displeasure. “I should keep a closer
eye on you, boy,” he said sharply. “What do you mean by running loose
around the country with a war going on?”
Before the captain could continue, Slim sidled through the doorway.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but that lieutenant an’ the guards are
sittin’ out there in the jeep. D’ya want ’em to wait, or can they go,
the lieutenant says?”
A call from the colonel in the other room, summoning Captain Dobie,
interrupted him.
When Dobie returned with the colonel, the Nazis, well covered by guns,
were ceremoniously marched back to the jeep.
The American officer’s orders were curt. “Lieutenant, I want these men
delivered to the general, by you, personally. He’s somewhere on Utah
Beach by now.”
The jeep, loaded like a school bus, turned and disappeared in the
direction from which it had just come.
CHAPTER TEN
“_Here Come the Tanks!_”
Long before dark, André, too tired to care any more what happened, had
stumbled into his old bed in the kitchen. During the night he roused
at times to hear the hum of trucks and clumping feet. He did not hear
the squadrons of planes coming in to drop relief troops and much-needed
ammunition to the hard-pressed ’chutists.
At dawn he awoke completely fresh, and went to look at his now
unfamiliar Normandy landscape.
Women tramped to damaged houses, distributing hot food and blankets.
Two small boys were investigating a badly smashed glider which had
settled on a hedge.
André had just decided to run to the Lescot farm, to inquire whether
Victor had come home, when Weller called to him to come to breakfast.
Afterwards, he went about his usual farm chores.
Troops from the beach landings filtered through the village that day.
Their officers paused briefly at the Gagnon house to exchange reports
with Captain Dobie.
“Well, at any rate, our tanks are beginning to come across the
causeways now,” a newly arrived major told the captain. “That’ll help
the airborne boys.”
“It will be a great relief,” Captain Dobie said. “Our parachute fellows
have been fighting hard without any rest.”
The major nodded. “The only trouble is,” he said, “somebody overlooked
the way these thick French hedgerows stop our tanks cold. We’ve got to
find a way to cut through them.”
André listened with amazement. He had never thought of those ancient
borders to the tiny Normandy meadows as tank traps. He knew, of course,
that cattle turned out to pasture seldom broke through the high, earth
banks topped by the century-old tangles. It did seem disappointing
to think that those great, wonderful American war machines could be
stopped by shrubbery.
“But why don’t the tanks keep to the roads, sir?” he asked.
The major grinned. “If Normandy had ten times as many roads, son,” he
replied, “we wouldn’t have enough for all the stuff the Allies have
to move into France. Besides, our tanks have to go where we know the
Germans are massing.”
The major was right about over-busy highways.
Trucks, loaded with armed men and supplies, had begun to grind by in a
long, noisy procession. Some village people had come back from hiding.
Children big and little ran along the roadside, catching windfalls of
candy, gum, and cellophane-wrapped cookies tossed out by the soldiers.
To André this was a very, very strange war--he could remember nothing
like it in any history book.
But when he went into the kitchen, he no longer felt that his father’s
house was threatened from all sides.
The crowd of German prisoners had been moved to a new compound, and the
geese had once more taken possession of the pond. André counted the
chickens. The flock looked a little sparse.
A shout from Sergeant Weller sent André back to the road.
Inside the front window Captain Dobie and Slim stood, waving cheerily.
Weller, both arms upraised, was saluting the approach of a great
elephant of a machine. It came lumbering up the sea road, its wide,
corrugated treads clanking on the gravel. After the first, in stately
dignity, thundered more of the metallic herd.
“The TANKS! The tanks!”
André’s heart thumped with excitement.
“Some sight, eh, boy?” Weller shouted.
With Weller, André ran out to reach up and shake hands with the tank
men.
The tank commanders and the gunners, André thought, were even
wilder-looking creatures than the ’chutists.
The men seemed colossal, standing in their turrets before the radio
antennae that wavered nervously, like an insect’s feelers, with the
sway of the tanks. Pushed-up goggles over helmets, and earphones, made
drivers and gunners seem part of the weird contraptions.
“They are wonderful,” André said. “I wish I could have seen them come
ashore from the ships that brought them across the Channel.”
Sergeant Weller frowned. “I don’t think you’d have liked it, son. Only
a few hours ago these men came off landin’ craft that were bein’ shot
at by Nazis from every direction. These guys are just the lucky ones
that didn’t get hit.”
The gathered villagers cheered, and the sound of their welcome rang out
far up the road.
André was still looking for Victor. But Victor had not been seen that
day.
André sauntered over to where the colonel had joined Dobie and the
others in the window.
“Captain,” André began. “Sir, about Victor--”
“I know,” smiled the captain. “You wonder why he doesn’t come back.
I feel sure he’ll be all right. If that car full of Nazi officers
got through the roads from Paris to here, then I’m sure your friend
Victor can find his way around. The Nazi officers said they drove
straight through Caen, Carentan, and right through our lines, if
you please--British _and_ American. They actually got as far as the
Jacquard farm without being detected.”
The colonel spoke up. “As a matter of fact, I don’t think the German
staff in Paris knew how much country our airborne troops were covering.
How could they? We had jammed their coastal radio and radar stations
all the way to Cherbourg. And the French Resistance and our men cut
telephone land lines. So it was impossible for the commanding German
general here on the peninsula to communicate with Paris.”
“Those Nazi prisoners,” said Dobie, “told us they came up from Paris
to find out what was really happening here. Hitler believed that our
invasion was coming at Calais.”
“He sure missed the boat,” Weller said cheerfully.
The last of the squadron of tanks had gone by, and the village people
were returning to their homes. André went back to the farmyard. It was
time for chores. He heard laughter coming from the barns, but by now he
was used to soldier sounds.
First, he must see how badly the orchard and fields in the rear had
been hit by the shelling. He went through the gate in the courtyard
wall.
His jaw dropped. Many apple trees were down. Great smudged shell holes
gaped between them. And the greatest hole yawned only a few feet away
from the edge of the lane where his trumpet was buried.
He snatched up a shovel, and sighed in relief when the trumpet came
up, green and smeared with damp earth, but unharmed. He nestled it
comfortably under his arm and went to the barn door.
The cows had not lowed, and now he saw why. Balanced on stools beside
the animals sat two lusty Americans. They were happily squirting
streams into milk pails held correctly between their knees.
One of the soldiers looked up curiously.
At the sight of the horn under André’s arm he cried, “Well, if it isn’t
Little Boy Blue, horn and all.”
The second milker called, “These cows yours? We thought nobody was
home. Sure seems good to milk an ole bossy again.” He grinned. “I come
from Iowa an’ I sure miss milkin’ time. Hope you don’t mind. We’re
almost through here.”
The men paused to admire André’s trumpet, and tootle a few wild notes,
before they helped him carry the pails to the springhouse. He filled a
pitcher for Captain Dobie, and took it to the “staff room,” as the old
store was now called. The room was again filled with strange soldiers,
some of them in bloody bandages.
The colonel was anxious to get away to his division command post.
“You stay right here, Dobie,” he said, “and the sergeant and Slim as
well. And hustle medics and replacement infantry forward, fast.”
Slim appeared and announced that he had Weller’s jeep ready to drive
the colonel to his headquarters.
When Captain Dobie and André were alone, the captain smiled and sighed.
“A fine mother I turned out to be,” he said. “_When_ did you eat
something last?”
André grinned shyly. “When did _you_ eat last, sir?”
Sergeant Weller’s voice roared from the hallway, “Lunch coming up!”
A large loaded tray appeared through the door, followed by Weller’s
bulky body.
André looked at a heaped platter in the middle, and laughed. “So that
is where our chickens went.”
“Your father will be paid for these fowl,” Dobie said. “So make up for
the eating you haven’t done today.”
Weller was not as good a cook as his mother or Marie, André thought.
But he was surprised that a tough sergeant could cook at all, and the
meal was good.
When the sun sank red behind the trees, an evening hush settled,
although soldiers from nearby bivouacs moved through the village
restlessly.
Weller yawned. “I hope it stays quiet around here awhile,” he said.
“After last night we could do with a little snooze, eh, Captain?”
He had scarcely made this wish than André cried, “Listen!”
A distant sound of motors from the sky was drowned by the opening bark
of an American antiaircraft battery close by.
Weller leaped to put out the lights.
“Might have known the Luftwaffe would wake up about now,” he grumbled.
Captain Dobie’s voice came out of the darkness. “I’ve been wondering
why we haven’t heard from them these last two days. Our air boys must
have pretty thoroughly crippled them.”
Ears were strained to follow the sounds.
“Must be several planes,” Dobie said. “They seem to be dropping small
bombs.”
Weller, at the window, called, “Looks like a Fourth of July
celebration.”
Suddenly he shouted, “_We got one!_”
In the darkness, André listened to the wild whine of the falling
Luftwaffe plane.
André reached Weller’s side in time to see flames spring high above the
dark treetops beyond the village.
“I didn’t see any ’chute,” Weller exclaimed.
“The pilot may have jumped before the fire lit up the sky,” the captain
replied.
The sudden flare of excitement was followed by an equally sudden lull
except for the sound of soldiers’ voices across the fields. The flack
guns lapsed into silence.
Captain Dobie said, “Whew! Next time, André, you go down to the cellar.
I forgot all about you for a minute.”
Slim and a detail of men were sent off to look for the fallen Nazi
plane, and also for the pilot.
“Better send out word to the French people around here to be on the
lookout,” Dobie added, “till we’re sure about him.”
When Slim and the men had been gone only a few minutes, Weller began to
fidget restlessly.
“How about I just take a look-see down the road, Captain?” he suggested.
Captain Dobie said okay, and Weller swept up a Tommy gun and went off
into the night.
He had gone only a few yards when André caught up with him.
In a field, the last flames were flickering from the fallen
Messerschmitt. A faint drizzle blurred the scene, but the figures of
many soldiers were dimly silhouetted against the light.
“No good goin’ over there,” Weller said, after studying the scene a
moment.
They had just begun to retrace their steps when Weller said, “Listen.”
André had heard sounds too--a creaking and the clop, clop of hoofbeats.
Coming down the wet road a new, unpainted cart rattled into sight.
Between the shafts clumped La Fumée. And, waving the reins behind the
dashboard, stood Victor.
“André!” he shouted. “Where did you go?” He brushed at his enormous
mustache nervously. “Well, never mind now. Get in. Get in. I’ll drive
you home.”
André gulped with relief. Weller demanded, “Ask him how he got home.”
André repeated the question in French, and Victor threw out his hands
indignantly.
“How _should_ I come?” he shouted. “By any open road those soldiers and
tanks left for my use. Americans, Americans everywhere! Tanks! Guns! I
have been halfway around the world to get here, it seems.”
“But where did you find your cart? I thought it was blown up!” André
cried.
[Illustration]
Victor’s eyebrows expressed more astonishment.
“Where _would_ I find it? Just where Jacquard said he would leave it,
of course. Beyond his shop, among the holly trees.”
When this was translated, Weller shook his head. “Well, climb in an’
let’s go home.”
La Fumée, sensing the nearness of her own stable, started briskly.
When they had said good night to Victor, Weller yawned loudly.
André watched Weller, and laughed. “I’m pretty sleepy, myself,” he
admitted.
Ten minutes later he was in his mother’s big bed, sprawled sound
asleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
_André and the Nazi Pilot_
Falling into bed, André’s thoughts had turned to his family, but his
worries were quickly drowned in sleep.
When he awoke, he ran downstairs to see what the sunrise had brought.
It had brought Victor.
André saw the old man--scrubbed pink and bristling--beside the guard at
the door. With Victor was another of the village fathers--a farmer who
had once been a schoolteacher. M. Blanc was a tall, square man, in a
rough tweed suit.
“I am here,” said Victor, speaking to both André and the guard--who did
not understand a word--“about a matter which demands attention. It is
the exasperating fact that an unexploded shell reposes in my--”
André cried, “Wait!” and hastily translated for the guard’s benefit.
Victor remained standing, with open mouth. The guard shouted, and Slim
came running. The captain was swiftly consulted, and a demolition
squad was rounded up. This took only a few seconds, since disposing of
unexploded shells was an ever-present problem.
On being questioned about where the “dud” was, Victor finished his
sentence. “In my parlor, near the bay window.”
At the last word, the demolition crew started running.
André asked, “But isn’t Mme. Lescot frightened?”
“She does not even know it is there,” Victor replied. “She has been off
helping with some of the children since yesterday. I was obliged to
prepare my own supper,” he finished crossly.
Captain Dobie came to the door and gravely shook hands with the two
Frenchmen. He eyed Victor curiously. After a moment’s study of the old
man, however, he decided that to order Victor to stay out of danger
would be a waste of time.
It was M. Blanc who spoke.
“We came, sir,” he said, “as spokesmen for the whole neighborhood. We
wish to offer our services in any way you Americans consider helpful.
We should also be grateful if you can tell us what to expect in the
way of future danger to our community.”
“I think,” replied Captain Dobie, “you people have accepted all this
destruction with fine, very brave spirit. The Maquis, as well as all
you other French people, have helped the landing forces more than you
will ever know. We Americans want you to realize that we are grateful.
It could have been much worse for us.”
M. Blanc put up a hand. “Please, m’sieur, it is our battle also. And
the Maquis have told us that the Americans up beyond Ste. Mère are
heroic.”
The captain said his men had been wonderful. “But until we dispose of
these Germans, we can’t move forward into France beyond this peninsula.”
“And the Canadians and British?” asked M. Blanc.
“They’ve successfully landed a lot of troops and tanks. They’ve
penetrated to a considerable depth toward Caen, I hear.”
“_Bon!_” Victor’s head bobbed. “When you have disposed of these
bothersome Nazis you speak of--you do what?”
Captain Dobie frowned. “We must throw a line of troops from these
beaches straight across the neck of the peninsula to cut off German
reinforcements from coming to the rescue of the enemy in Cherbourg.”
“No doubt,” frowned Victor, “the Nazis will respond by doing all the
damage possible to our fine Cherbourg port.”